FARCAS AND OTHERS v. ROMANIA - 30502/05 (Judgment : Article 6 - Right to a fair trial : Fourth Section Committee)

Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque, President, Egidijus Kūris, Iulia Motoc, judges, and Andrea Tamietti, Deputy Section Registrar,

. The applicants were born in 1935, 1945 and 1956 respectively and live in Ploieşti.

. On 26 January 1995 the applicants lodged an action for compensation against company R., a privately-owned former State company which had used the 1975 invention between 1985 and 1988 (for details about those proceedings, see Farcaş and Others v. Romania , no. 67020/01 , §§ 7-22, 10 November 2005).

. In a decision of 24 June 2002 the Braşov County Court allowed in part the action lodged by the applicants against company R., and ordered the latter to pay to the first applicant 2,284,679,617 Romanian lei (ROL), an amount representing compensation for the use, between 1985 and 1988, of the invention patented in 1975. The second and third applicants appealed, and in a decision of 8 November 2002 the Braşov Court of Appeal also awarded them compensation - ROL 2,230,620,676 to the second applicant and ROL 1,669,759,157 to the third applicant.

. On 10 March 2004 the applicants and company R. signed an agreement for the payment of the compensation awarded by the court. Between 2 and 21 April 2004 the company paid about 20% of the amounts granted.